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THE 



DWARF TRIBE OF THE UPPER AMAZON 



BY 



DANIEL G. BR1NTON. M. D. 



Reprinted from The American Anthropologist, September, 1898 



1 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

JUDD & DETWEH.ER, PRINTERS 

1898 



Ph&5, Buffered 



THE DWARF TRIBE OF THE UPPER AMAZON 

DANIEL G. BRINT0N, M. D. 

In the June number of IS Anthropologic the editor of that ex- 
cellent journal publishes what he believes is the confirmation of 
the story of a tribe of dwarfs on the tributaries of the upper 
Amazon. His authority is vague — " an American traveler, Mr 
Sullivan," who says: "I found on the Rio Negro beings (des 
etres) of a remarkably small stature. ... So far as I could 
learn, they live near the sources of the Orinoco, or in that part 
of Venezuela which adjoins the frontiers of Brazil. They are 
only four feet eight inches in height and the women still less." 

The editor of the journal recalls that Humboldt refers to the 
alleged existence of these dwarfs about this locality, 2 and regards 
Mr Cunningham's statements as a confirmation of the assertion. 

It is timely, therefore, to review what has been said of this 
supposed pygmy race while we wait for more positive recent 
observations. 

The story long antedates Humboldt, for it goes back to the 
publication of Father Acufia's voyage on the Amazon, the ac- 
count of which was printed in Madrid in 1641. He heard of 
them from the Tupinambas, who called them Guayazis, evidently 
guqra, men, with the diminutive suffix giey = " little men." 

I am inclined to believe that the father here fell into an error, 
taking the term literally, when, in fact, it was intended merely 
as an epithet of depreciation and contempt, for Father Coleti 
in the next century described these Guayazis as living on the 
south bank of the Amazon and not as small in stature, but in 

2 Near Esmeraldas, on the Orinoco, Humboldt measured a family whose adults aver- 
aged in height five feet, three inches, English measure (Personal Narrative, vol. n, p. 
463). They belonged to a tribe called Guaicas, but he could not learn whether the 
other members of the tribe were similarly undersized. They are possibly the same 
as the Quaicanes mentioned by Uricoechea as dwelling at present on the Rio Meta 
Oramatica de la Lengna Chibcha, Introd. p. xxxvni). 



278 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [Vol. XI 

pluck, and partly enslaved by the Tupinambas. " Questi bar- 
bari," he says, " sono di poco spirito." 1 

This metaphor was as familiar to the Tupi mind as to our 
own. when we speak of a man as being " about the smallest that 
we know." So they say aba pia carapi (hombre de corto animo, 
pusilanime). Their usual words for dwarfs are carape, caratura, 
aturij and apua? but I know of no tribes with these appellations. 

The German travelers Spix and Martius, when at the Barra do 
Rio Negro, about 1830, heard of the pygmy tribe as dwelling on 
the River Jurua, and known by the Tupi name Cauana. This 
von Martius translates as derived from cauane, the tortoise or 
large river turtle, but I think it more likely to be from caa, forest ; 
ana, people = " woods men " or " wild men." The travelers were 
fortunate enough to see one at that place, who measured three 
feet four inches high and claimed to be twenty-four years old. 
Unfortunately, they did not ascertain whether he was a " sport," 
or represented the average of his people, nor did they take a 
vocabulary from him. 3 

Now the Jurua is a tolerably well-known river. Its banks are 
sparsely inhabited by tribes named Nahuas, Arahuas, Marahuas, 
Culinos, Catahuichis, Catuquinas. etc., all of the Arawack lin- 
guistic stock. We hear in later days of no dwarfs and no 
Cauanas. 4 It looks, therefore, as if the assignment of place was 
erroneous. 

There was, however, a tribe with this name, and not remote 
from the spot where it is asserted the dwarfs still exist. The 
name Cauanas is applied by Fr. Jacinto de Carvajal to a horde 
he mentions as dwelling somewhere along the Rio Apure at the 
time of his visit in 1647. He says they were of the Carib nation, 
but adds no other particulars. 5 

These are not mentioned by Father Gumilla in his Historia 
del Orinoco, nor b}^ Humboldt, although the latter may refer to 
them as Catenas, whom he places on the Rio Cusiana, a branch 
of the Rio Meta. 6 This would be about a hundred miles from 
the Rio Apure, a moderate migration. 

i Coleti, Dizionario Storico-geografico deW America Meridionale, T. i, p. 165 (Venice, 1771) 

2 Restivo, Vocabulario de la lengua Guarani, S. V. "Enano." 

3 Von Martius, Beitrdge zur Ethnographic und Sprachcnkunde Arnerikas, vol. n, p. 124. 
•i See Paul Marcoy, Voyage a travers V Ameriquc du Sud, Tome n, pp. 368-372. 

5 Relation del Descubrimiento del Rio Apure, p. 301. (First printed at Leon, 1S92.) 

6 Mentioned in the list of tribes in his Personal Narrative, vol. n. 



I90i 



Sept. 1898] DWARF TRIBES OF THE UPPER AMAZON 279 

The somewhat diminutive stature of a few tribes in this part 
of South America is well known. Dr Marcano, in his work on 
the Ethnography of Venezuela, calls attention to it as exempli- 
fied in the pre-Columbian skeletons he unearthed in the Aragua 
valley. To be sure, they measured 1 m. 56, which is not that 
of dwarfs. 1 

Professor Virchow has shown in his monumental work on 
american craniology that the most striking examples of micro- 
cephaly are found among the Goajiro Indians living on the gulf 
of Venezuela, and belonging, I add in passing, to the same Ara- 
wack stock as the tribes of the river Jurua. 2 Healthy adult 
women average from 1,040 to 1,130 and the men average about 
1,390, cranial cubic capacity. 

The same distinguished authority said in his address before 
the German Anthropological Society at Innspruck, 1894 : " Nan- 
ocephaly has been found in that part of Colombia which is in 
contact with Venezuela, and also in the southern part of the 
Cordillera and on its eastern and western slopes." 

Although short, these tribes are not feeble in body. On the 
contrary, they are sturdily built and disclose surprising endur- 
ance and muscular strength. Their deficiency in stature can- 
not be attributed to starvation and general physical degeneration, 
but to other causes which I need not discuss. 

These facts do not show anything more than that there are 
undersized tribes in that part of the continent, with occasional 
individual examples of dwarfs, such as occur in all communi- 
ties. 

It is still a question whether the rumor of a pygmy people 
somewhere in the tropical forests is not to be classed with the 
stories which threw a strange glamour about those inaccessible 
regions in the early days of the discovery. There were many of 
these, for I am speaking of the part of the map where was lo- 
cated the El Dorado, the golden city of Manoa, the home of the 
warlike Amazons ; where dwelt the men with tails, and the mys- 
terious Oyacoulets, warriors with white skin, blue eyes, and long- 
blonde beards. All have vanished from history but the pygmies, 
and their turn will probably soon come. 

i Ethnographie Precolombienne du Venezuela, p. 42 (Paris, 1889). 
2 See his Crania Ethnica Americana, p. 23. 



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